Not when Michael Jordan hung in suspension impossibly long over befuddled opponents.

Not when Kobe Bryant was lobbing to one-man herd Shaquille O’Neal.

The game today is gorgeous, the result of a makeover as overdue as the Chicago Cubs.

And all it took was four simple words:

Shut up and play.

Like chicken wings, pay-at-the-pump and all other great innovations of our time, the NBA’s crackdown on player whining has left us with one telling question. Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?

That’s how you know when something new is a definite improvement.

It is an awesome sight, the nothingness that now follows most NBA whistles. No more flailing limbs in mock disbelief. No more annoying, exaggerated sprints to the opposite end of the court. No more politicking for calls that never, ever are changed anyway.

No more, thank the heavens, drama.

Who knew muted acceptance could say so much? And speak so loudly?

The NBA has reached a career high in watchability just three weeks into the new season. Even Clippers games are softer on the eyeballs. Heck, watching the Laker boys is as easy as watching the Laker Girls.

The evolution is a joy to witness, almost as much fun as rooting against the Miami Heat.

And despite the public concerns of players like Lamar Odom, amazingly, the games haven’t deteriorated, the league hasn’t folded, the world hasn’t ceased its spinning.

Odom, who, judging from his usual post-whistle reaction in past seasons, never has committed a foul, whined about the no-whining mandate last month, saying The Man was trying to smother the emotion from the game.

Silly Lamar. Emotion remains nearly everywhere in professional basketball. Just watch Odom’s teammate Shannon Brown if you don’t think overt passion is still on display nightly.

Emotion for the game is healthy, necessary and welcomed. And has nothing to do with emotion for the referees. That sort of emotion is wasted and ridiculous, something that never has been more obvious than it is today, in its absence.

During the preseason, as players were choking on all the technical fouls, worry arose about the very essence of the NBA.

The Players Association threatened legal action and still might take it. The union head called the no-whining policy an “unwarranted overreaction.”

Silly union head. Ridding the league of complaining — now that we’ve seen what gripe-free basketball looks like — couldn’t have been more warranted.

To go back now would be akin to returning to the days when basketball was played in canvas high-tops and on black-and-white televisions.

This is the kind of overreaction the sports world needs.

So what should be next? How about watering down those absurd, way-over-the-top manager-umpire arguments in baseball?

Why are these comical exchanges even permitted in the first place? What’s the point, other than giving a grown man the opportunity to make a monkey of himself?

Yes, there is a theatric quality to two adults flying into fits of Three Stooges-like rage. But honestly, what’s being accomplished? One man spraying spit on another because a ball might or might not have been foul seems like, well, like an unwarranted overreaction.

And let’s clean up baseball’s bench-clearing brawls, too. A simple solution can be found in hockey, a game that legislates for fighting.

All baseball needs to do is adopt hockey’s third-man-in rule.

If a batter charges the mound, only the umpires can involve themselves.

Any player who leaves his position on the field, in the dugout or in the bullpen to participate is ejected. That would stop the nonsense right now.

It’s all about cleaning up the games, keeping the emphasis where it belongs, on the action taking place between the officials’ calls not on whatever’s happening between the official’s ears. Lakers coach Phil Jackson said the NBA now “looks better cosmetically.”

And wouldn’t the NFL upgrade its looks if receivers were told to stop prancing around begging for interference on every other incompletion? Wouldn’t the aesthetics improve if players were ordered to cease pulling imaginary flags from their imaginary back pockets every time they imagined they’d been wronged?

Shut up and play.

For a moment, close your eyes and picture a sports world 100 percent free of moaning, completely empty of whining. No raised palms, shaken heads or rolled pupils. The sound is soothing, isn’t it? The image lovely.

Let the referees ref and the umpires umpire. As players, just stick to playing, which is why sports were invented in the first place.

The NBA has made the right call, a great call, and no one need complain any longer.

The final judgment has been issued. Deal with it quietly and move on. If Lamar Odom can do so, anyone can.

Jeff Miller has been a sports columnist since 1998, having previously written for the Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald. He began at the Register in 1995 as beat writer for the Angels.

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